9 Personality Points: Description & Success Tips

  • Overview of gifts and challenges of each point
  • Developmental tips for each point to be successful
  • How best to work with each point

1. Perfectionist

Visionary particularly around high standards and goal achievement. Organized, efficient, detail-oriented. Gets the job done on time with excellence. Can get lost in their vision and detail, missing the big picture. Wants clear communication. Can be critical of self and others, making it difficult to challenge their work.
Tips for a Perfectionist to be successful
  • Hold the big picture and keep moving forward.
  • Know when something is ‘good enough’ and consider it complete.
  • Accept constructive criticism without personalizing it.
  • Cultivate serenity. 
  • Move from judgment to discernment through kindness.
  • Be playful. Enjoy diverse ways of doing things well.
How best to work with a Perfectionist
  • Keep them focused on the big picture.
  • Deliver. Keep your promises.
  • Be specific.
  • Praise their work.
  • Be hypothetical. 
  • Offer alternatives versus criticism.

2. Giver

People oriented, a ‘We, the People’ approach to leadership. Likes to be the power behind the throne. Focuses on inter-personal needs. Driven by emotional connection. Upbeat. Supportive. Knows what people need and provides it for them. Great sales people. Masterfully manages the boss. Can be so people-pleasing they lose their own agendas. Need to be needed, appreciated. Conflict averse.  Tend to choose favorites.
Tips for a Giver to be successful
  • Give altruistically, no strings attached.
  • Know and state your own needs.
  • Maintain your own sense of identity.
  • Trust your inner feelings.
  • Know you have a contribution to make independent of taking care of others' needs.
How best to work with a Giver
  • Let them take care of your needs.
  • Tell them how much you need and appreciate them.
  • Be interpersonal.
  • Ask them what they need.
  • Be genuine.
  • Support them in dealing with conflict.

3. Performer

A ‘can-do, fast-forward’ attitude – expects same of others. Always in motion. Makes things happen. Fast, high achievers. High producers. Magnetic. Optimistic. Great at sales. Often charismatic leaders. Can be superficial, arrogant, driven without reflection. May not take others into  account in their drive to achieve their own vision. Can want to win at any cost. Failure does not exist. Create appearance of success – believe reality will follow.
Tips for a Performer to be successful
  • Integrate values with the desire to succeed.
  • Consider people and results in equal measure.
  • Ask questions to discover people’s motivation.
  • Recognize trial and error can lead you forward.
How best to work with a Performer
  • Align with their goal and help them be reflective.
  • Take action to achieve goals.
  • Sell them a new idea in bullet point action form. 
  • Outline benefits clearly.
  • Partner and challenge at the same time in a way that 
         makes them look more successful.

4. Romantic

Creative, inventive, thinks outside the box. Sees the big vision. Oriented towards elegance and authenticity. Sensitive. Intense. Reflective. Connects with others. Incorporates business goals with personal feelings. Can be dissatisfied, self-absorbed. Can make people feel inadequate. May have difficulty staying focused on task when feelings arise. Rules aren’t made for them.
Tips for a Romantic to be successful
  • Deliver on your promises. Keep going.
  • Allow for good enough. 
  • It doesn’t have to be aesthetically perfect.
  • Acknowledge fear of incompetence around details and take action anyway.
  • Accept and appreciate the part of you that feels ordinary.
  • Stay focused. Choose equanimity over drama.
How best to work with a Romantic
  • Ask for and incorporate their creativity.
  • Recognize their unique contribution.
  • Give them important tasks.
  • Recognize their difficulty dealing with the mundane.
  • Give big picture. Set pragmatic goals.
  • Create action plan. Follow-up.

5. Observer

Wise. Self-sufficient. Compartmentalized thinker. Analytic. Absorbs facts and details then formulates new perspective. Attention on ideas versus people. Able to not get pulled into emotions of  situation. Can be isolated, distant, withholding. Can be judgmental around display of emotions. Fear of losing their energy, not having enough. 
Tips for an Observer to be successful
  • Reach out emotionally to others even if it feels counter-intuitive.
  • Recognize that others have something to contribute.
  • Incorporate the human factor and feeling with your capacity to process information.
  • Stand up for your work and that of your team.
  • Be generous with your ideas, time and care for others.
How best to work with an Observer
  • Present the facts.
  • Give them time and space to think and respond.
  • Stick to ideas versus emotions.
  • Appreciate their ability to see and think deeply into things.

6. Loyal Skeptic

Team player. Sees things that can go wrong. Loyal. Loves who you are, not your image. Responsible. Focused. Supports the underdog. Can be willing to question authority. Can be oppositional, pessimistic, paralyzed by doubt of world and self.
Tips for a Loyal Skeptic to be successful
  • Use your gift of seeing what could go wrong constructively.
  • Solve problems versus lay blame.
  • Feel the fear and do it anyway.
  • Recognize that you are valuable.
  • Consciously move from a yes/but to a yes/and stance.
How best to work with a Loyal Skeptic
  • Be consistent.
  • Don’t exaggerate.
  • Be genuine.
  • Honor their concerns.
  • Explain your inner process.
  • Invite them to reality check.

7. Epicure

Brainstormer. Synthesizer. Creative. Sees how things can fit together in a new way. Visionary. Prefers multiple options. Thrives in multi-tasking environment. Gets projects started. Needs support to follow-through. Easily distracted. Can get caught in ‘everything is a learning 
opportunity’ causing rationalization. No such thing as failure. Can exhibit lack of responsibility and empathy. Breaks hierarchies.
Tips for an Epicure to be successful
  • Allow freedom of methodology to accomplish tasks.
  • Cultivate self discipline and focus.
  • Follow through.
  • Be decisive. Make commitments.
  • Listen deeply. Stay in the present moment.
  • Stay with people and ideas long enough to discover their gifts.
How best to work with an Epicure
  • Support their dream.
  • Have their job description be broad and diverse.
  • Don’t assign mundane, repetitive work.
  • Reframe unpleasant tasks in a fun way. 
  • Appreciate short term sacrifice.
  • Give them freedom to move between different, pleasant options.

8. Boss

Honest, straightforward, natural leader. Larger than life energy for projects personally perceived as important. Will stand up and move against powerful opposition in service of getting the job done. Focus is on justice. Excellent team player if they respect team members and/or feel that they legitimately need protection. Practical, believes end justifies the means. Meets conflict head on. Prone to outbursts of anger. Can be insensitive to people’s feelings. Often impulsive. Can be vindictive.
Developmental tips for a Boss to be successful
  • Temper the need for control and power with sensitivity.
  • Realize the power of your impact on people.
  • Modulate your behavior to rally versus alienate people 
  • Recognize genuine vulnerability as a strength versus weakness.
  • Use your power with humility.
How best to work with a Boss
  • Give as much autonomy as possible.
  • Speak your truth. 
  • Disclose all information including angry feelings.
  • Minimize ambiguity. Clarify hierarchy.
  • Fight only the essential fights without escalating them
  • When you get to know a boss really well, help them reframe vulnerability as strength and negotiation as a way of increasing power.

9. Mediator

Acknowledges, appreciates, mediates all points of view. Finds commonalities. Peaceful, accepting, displays goodwill. Very productive within structure. Great team player. Willing to do any task. Cares little about the limelight. Can lose priorities and get lost in non-essential 
tasks.  Takes on others point of view as their own. Spaces out easily. Can be stubborn in passive-aggressive  manner. Can lack vision and passion.
Tips for a Mediator to be successful
  • Know what you believe. 
  • Speak and act upon it without qualification.
  • Finish your own projects, now.
  • Learn to say no. Tolerate others’ discomfort.
  • Engage in conflict when necessary.
  • Cultivate a willingness to stand out. 
  • Value accomplishing your goals.
How best to work with a Mediator
  • Help them find and expand their passion even if it seems minimal to you.
  • Support them in finding and speaking their own truth.
  • Get their opinion before you give your own.
  • Invite them to prioritize and work on what is most important.
  • Minimize conflict. 
  • Present differences in non- threatening manner.
Enneagram Success Tips by Personality Point by Eckles/Hahn/Beckett © Copyright 2008
Kathy brings a deep background in leadership, energy, psychology and group facilitation to her work with private individuals and organizational leaders.

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